Grateful Dead

Europe '72: The Complete Recordings - All The Music Edition

$450.00Europe '72: The Complete Recordings -All The Music Edition

Our Europe '72 boxed set is now officially sold out, with all 7,200 boxes now gone! We can't thank you enough for your support, for having faith in the project and taking the plunge to purchase this unprecedented release. Despite the fact that it's going to be a bit of a wait before it arrives on your door step, we are sure you'll be blown away with the results.

We are now offering the All-The-Music edition of Europe '72, which includes all of the music recorded on the tour, with each show in its own individual package, complete with its own liner notes by Dead scholars such as David Gans, Blair Jackson, Steve Silberman, Gary Lambert and others, as well as by attendees of some of the shows. You'll get 73 CDs and over 70 hours of prime Grateful Dead. You can purchase it now by clicking here.

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE MUSIC...

Because you dared dream this might happen one day… Because you went down to the Gypsy Woman and offered up your first-born to try to make it happen… Because there are enough passionate Dead Heads at Rhino/GD who thought it might be cool for this to happen… It’s happening! Coming in September is a gargantuan EUROPE ’72 MEGA-BOX SET containing ALL 22 SHOWS of what is arguably the greatest tour the Grateful Dead ever played, on a whopping and clearly cosmic 73 DISCS (over 70 hours of music!). Bet you didn’t see that comin’!

Really, at this point we probably don’t need to lay on too much hype about how wonderful the music is: Chances are, if you’re even considering buying a copy of this enormous box, you already know how amazing the Dead’s tour of Europe in April and May of 1972 was. To review briefly, though, the Dead’s first tour outside of North America took them to all sorts of historic and unusual venues in England, Denmark, West Germany, France, Holland and even tiny Luxembourg. Many members of the Dead “family” came along on what was really an extended working vacation that was designed to both expose the Dead to new audiences and also reward the band for their unlikely conquest of America during the preceding two years. As a hedge against the costs of the nearly two-month trip, the Dead’s label, Warner Bros., paid for the band to lug around a 16-track recorder to capture the entire tour… and we’re glad they did!

This was a band at the top of its game, still ascending in the wake of three straight hit albums — Workingman’s Dead, American Beauty and the live Grateful Dead (“Skull & Roses”). It had been a year since the lineup had gone to its single-drummer configuration, six months since Keith Godchaux had been broken in as the group’s exceptional pianist, and this marked the first tour to feature Donna Godchaux as a member of the touring band. There was a ton on new, unreleased material that came into the repertoire in the fall of ’71 (after “Skull & Roses” was out) and during the spring of ’72, including “Tennessee Jed,” “Jack Straw,” “Mexicali Blues,” “He’s Gone,” “Comes A Time,” “Ramble on Rose,” “One More Saturday Night,” “Black-Throated Wind,” “Looks Like Rain” and Pigpen’s “Chinatown Shuffle,” “The Stranger (Two Souls in Communion)” and “Mr. Charlie.” (Sadly, this was Pigpen’s final tour.) All those future classics were interspersed with songs from the aforementioned “hit” albums—such as “Uncle John’s Band,” “Brokedown Palace,” “Cumberland Blues,” “Casey Jones,” “Sugar Magnolia,” “Bertha,” “Not Fade Away,” et al — and then were topped off by loads of big jamming numbers — the Europe ’72 tour produced spectacular versions of “Dark Star,” “The Other One” “Playing in the Band,” “Truckin’,” “China Cat Sunflower” > “I Know You Rider,” “Good Lovin’,” “Lovelight” and even the early Pig chestnut “Caution.” And that’s leaving out a truckload of other tunes, too! There wasn’t a clunker show in the bunch, and many are acknowledged today as classics. No doubt you already have some favorites.

Through the years, there have been a few releases of material from the Europe tour—starting with the 3-album Europe ’72 which knocked our socks off in the fall of that year, and followed many years later by material from a pair of German shows and the fantastic 4-CD Stepping Out, culled from the group’s eight shows in England. Incredibly, though, only one full show from the tour has come out previously: the excellent 4/24 concert in Dusseldorf, Germany, released as Rockin’ the Rhein in 2004.

Until now, that is. Jeffrey Norman, who has been the primary mixer of Dead archival multi-track material for the past 15 years (Fillmore West ’69, Ladies and Gentlemen…, Rockin’ the Rhein, Nightfall of Diamonds, etc.) has spent many months toiling over the 16-track masters from the tour, and will continue working on the mixes through the Winter and Spring, employing the high-tech Plangent Processes transfer and restoration tools, trying to get every show to sound “just exactly perfect” (as Bob Weir says) for this release. You might think you’ve heard that intense “Dark Star” > “Sugar Mag” > “Caution” from Copenhagen, but I guarantee you’ve never heard it sound this alive! Mastering to HDCD specs is two-time Grammy-winning engineer David Glasser of Airshow Mastering. Needless to say, all the songs that turned up on previous Europe compilations will be appear in their proper show contexts, and in the case of songs from the Europe ’72 album, without overdubs that were added later (where possible).

So dig deep, raid the penny jar, take a weekend job at Jack-in-the-Box, beg your kindly ol’ grandma for some of your inheritance early… Yes, it’s an extravagance, but jeez, you (or your loved one) deserve it! This is way cool.

Brian2005I
I noticed some hiss and warble on the end of El Paso (disc 1, track 7), just after the song has ended. It's just part of the recording and Jeffery Norman and the others involved in the production of these recordings to CD decided to keep this noise in and not filter it out.

Honestly, I just asked if they could tell me whether the whistle sound was from the recording or a disc error - they sent me the replacement of their own volition. Anyhow, I just wanted to post because I think good service deserves a mention, and I hope my experience encourages others to be braver about making the big investment. It's great stuff. I'm about four shows out from being through the set, and I've noticed zero disc errors.

... I am happy Brian has reported that replacing CDs is easy now, what he did was replace a perfectly good CD for another. This event wastes Rhino's time, it creates added expense to produce these releases, and it contributes to increased prices for future releases for the rest of us. It's true that one incident alone does not a price increase make, but please fellow Deadheads, be certain that you have a defective disc before requesting a replacement. For example, a subtle background hum during a quiet passage certainly does not indicate a defective disc. Remember, the master tapes have all manner of irregularies but they should never be confused for a defective disc if you educate yourself (dead) ahead of time.

glad to hear it. the majority of the original 7800 who subscribed and made the whole thing possible for those that followed got screwed with the inconvenience of rhino having no mechanism in place to take care of issues. it took people months and months to get it right with them. i would assume, given the condition of my box, that many still have issues which are unresolved.

you are correct though, when you have perfect discs this set is overall excellent and a must have for the faithful. it is the holy grail of GD music.

Since I saw a few comments here that gave me pause before ordering, I thought I'd share my experience. El Paso on 5/26/72 has a faint, high-pitched background hum during the quiet parts that sort of "warbles" and disappears by the end. I was not sure if this was a problem with my disc or part of the recording. So I called the help line explained my concern and within a week I had a replacement disc in a nice little single-disc sleeve obviously designed for replacement CDs (and complete with GD artwork). There was no suggestion that I should mail anything to them. So in case you were wondering, they appear to have a system for quickly and easily replacing CDs, now. Unfortunately, the hum problem is with the recording - not the CD. This set is still, on balance, excellent quality. I'm happy I purchased it.

Separately, here is how you get the discs out without damaging the packaging - you gently pinch the casing at the slit, tip it, and the disc will slide right out.

guit30,
Too bad you couldn't afford the $450 All Music Edition. The playing on all shows are above and beyond excellent and I think the mixes are fine, probably a little more time could have been invested to make things sound excellent, but they're fine for me. I had no issues with defective discs, but some were scratched, as if they were handled improperly before packaging. As for the playing of the discs, it seems to me that it is the equipment one is playing the discs on is really the issue. Some of the sleeves tore, but I replaced them. I also I was able to snag an original steamer box set with the books, and both books are fun to read.

nothing new here, I too got defective discs, 10 of them, got promises from TPTB that all would be fixed, to this date, nothing, nada, zip. So, I called the credit card co and had the charges removed due to defective merchandise, that was a year ago, still nothing from anyone, so, I got a product that was defective for nothing, what a rip off. This release could have been the holy grail of box sets, now it's a big dust collector on my floor and to this date I have purchased nothing, zip, nada from rhino and never will again.

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